A rather mixed company was grouped about the piano, mostly young people with long hair and pale faces, of the music-of-the-future sort; mingled with these a few diplomatists, officers, journalists, and people without any other profession than that of knowing everybody and being introduced everywhere. The professor of æsthetics advanced to meet the new arrivals with a sort of host-like cordiality, and shook hands with them. He wore an old-fashioned blue dress-coat with gold buttons, a yellow piqué waistcoat, white summer trousers, and a stiff, black cravat, that compelled him to keep his chin perpetually thrown up. Stephanopulos emerged from the crowd of enthusiastic courtiers in order to welcome the guests, which he too did as if he felt himself quite at home. But now the dense circle divided, and the countess herself swept up to the new-comers. She had made an exceedingly becoming toilet--a dark dress of light material, that left bare her shoulders, which were still youthful in appearance; and a Venetian point-lace veil, thrown with studied carelessness about her head, and fastened on one side by a fresh, dark-red rose. The dead white of her cheeks looked more blooming than usual in the warm light of the candles, and her keen, piercing eyes and white teeth vied with one another in brilliancy. "I am so glad you have kept your word," she exclaimed to the young men, giving one of her soft little hands to each of them. "I hope, too, your talented friend and master will also find his way here; and you shall not regret having come. To be sure, I told you beforehand you must be contented with what your ears would let you enjoy. Still, your eyes sha'n't go away quite unsatisfied. Come, I will show you something beautiful." She took Felix's arm, and, talking rapidly all the time, led him to the other end of the _salon_. In a corner, on a semicircular sofa, sat several mothers and duennas, and in the chairs on either side perhaps a half dozen young girls, all belonging to the stage or the music-school, engaged in earnest conversation with some young musicians about the latest opera and the last concert. A little to one side of them a group of elderly gentlemen could be seen gathered about a slight, youthful figure, who sat near a little flower-stand, and who appeared to be listening in rather an absent way to a white-haired little man, who was giving a long disquisition on Bach's Passion-Music. Her back was turned toward the side from which the countess approached with Felix. Now, upon hearing the hostess's voice, she turned with much dignity. "Allow me, _ma toute belle_, to introduce to you Baron von Weiblingen and Herr Rosenbusch," said the countess. "The gentlemen are artists, dear Irene; Herr Rosenbusch is a painter and musician.--You have brought your flute, haven't you?"